Funding and Awareness

UNPRECEDENTED U.S. GOVERNMENT FUNDING FOR COMPLEX TISSUE CRYOPRESERVATION

January 2015

The Dept. of Defense created three grant pipelines for organ and tissue preservation, the first in U.S. history, as a result of discussions with Organ Preservation Alliance and its advisors. These funded over a dozen labs, so far totaling ~$7.5 million.

OPA also helped organize research labs to apply, leading a Dept. of Defense official to call the strength and number of applications “unprecedented.” Despite the high application volume, the award rate exceeded the national average.

DEPT. OF DEFENSE DOUBLES SUPPORT FOR TISSUE AND ORGAN CRYOPRESERVATION

January 2016

In Jan. 2016 the Dept. of Defense released three new grant programs for organ and tissue preservation, based on the exceptional strength and number of applications for first round of solicitations in the year before.

These programs were greenlit by the Dept. of Defense before seeing the Phase 1 results of the previous year’s grants–a tremendous show of confidence in the research opportunities in preservation and the labs that are pursuing them.

Based on the Organ Preservation Alliance’s work, major media outlets such as The Economist, Scientific American, and WIRED have highlighted cryopreservation progress, helping to attract new interest from the scientific community as well as funding, investment, and political support.

Among the developments covered were the new federal funding programs for organ and tissue preservation resulting from an extended dialogue between the U.S. Dept. of Defense, OPA, and its advisors. Other topics included investment in organ and tissue preservation companies, and new OPA initiatives.